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Jeff Bezos is better known for building the e-commerce empire of Amazon than his entrepreneurial work at rocket-builder Blue Origin – but Morgan Stanley says that may change.
“We believe investors may want to pay far more attention to another emerging force for the advancement of efforts in Space that has both the will and, increasingly, the financial muscle to put to work. That force is Jeff Bezos,” Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said in a note Thursday. “Investors may want to take notice.”
Bezos pours about $1 billion of his Amazon stock into his space venture each year, with Blue Origin expected to begin competing directly with Elon Musk’s SpaceX in 2020. Morgan Stanley estimated Bezos’ Amazon shares are worth about $160 billion – in other words, “equal to around 16 years worth of NASA expenditures on Space exploration,” the firm said. Morgan Stanley advised its clients to take note of that comparison as Bezos’ wealth continues to grow.
“As the value of Jeff Bezos’s Amazon stake approaches $200 billion, his ability to influence private, commercial, and even government efforts in space grows, potentially accelerating capabilities and capital formation,” Jonas said.
Amazon’s stock has risen 70 percent this year
Amazon shares briefly passed $1 trillion in market cap for the first time on Sept. 4, joining Apple as the only publicly traded U.S. company above the benchmark. Analysts cite the company’s ever-diversifying portfolio as a value driver.
Bezos has said publicly that Blue Origin is “the most important work” he’s doing, Morgan Stanley noted. He also has said there should be “a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon” and thinks it’s not just time for human’s to return to the moon, it’s “time to stay.”
Blue Origin is headed quickly toward commercial operations as the company nears the end of testing for several of its major projects. Its BE-4 engine, the thunderous staple of Blue Origin’s propulsion business, has demonstrated that it “works, and works well,” CEO Bob Smith told CNBC in April. The company also hopes to soon launch humans into space on its New Shepard rocket, which has flown nines times. New Shepard is being built to offer tourists a ride to space, bringing passengers in a capsule up past 350,000 feet, where they would spend about 10 minutes floating in zero gravity before returning back to Earth.
